NOBODY PANIC!!!!!

(Update: 3:30 p.m. PST, 11/25/09. Cat won’t be going home tonight; we’ll be staying another night here at Club Med. She’s fine; she’s just not where she’d need to be to leave. So tomorrow’s a Thanksgiving we won’t forget!)

Breakfast of scrambled eggs with bell peppers and onions in stomach: check, even though bizarre cuz Cat can’t eat. (She’s upstairs showering with some weird Sani-Soap she had to lather up with and then stand there for five minutes before she can rinse off, a process for which she’s turned on the heat in our place, temporarily turning me here in the kitchen into Lawrence of Lelabia, though I’m not sure that’s spelled right.)

Peppercorns sprayed all over kitchen and dining room because I brought this pepper-grinder combo thing at Trader Joe’s and then tore it open like a maniac about two minutes ago because I wanted pepper on my eggs and now I’m sitting in the middle of all these pepper balls feeling like a cobb salad gone berserk.

Identification with lettuce-based entrée. Check.

Okay, don’t panic! We’re leaving in a half hour! I have to go! I don’t know if I’ll be able to connect with the outside world once we’re there! If I can, I will! If not I won’t! Life’s like that! Whaddaya gonna do! We’re out of control! Everything’s up to God! We all die anyway! But let’s not think about that right now! LOVE TO YOU ALL!

She's in great hands….. You and God. No better place to be — in circumstances like this.

Praying your days ahead will be evident of those things we cannot see.

Blessings,

Donna

missrose

John and Cat, I will be praying for you both!

HUGS,

Mandi

Liz Edmundson

All will be well! I will be praying!

http://www.myspace.com/whitenoisemetalpodcast Brian Shields

You both are in my agnostic prayers

http://melindasmusings.com Melinda

I have been and will continue to pray for you both. I enjoyed the recap of your morning, glad you can keep your sense of humor going even in scary times.

http://solnushka.wordpress.com/ Solnushka

Thinking of you both.

http://www.johnshore.wordpress.com John Shore

Hey, guys! We're here! Cat's sitting right next to me, in the full-on Hospital Gown and robe and all that. Blue-stripes. Wrinkly material.

How has that outfit—or the MATERIAL it's made from—not changed in at LEAST the 50 years I know of. How weird.

Anyway, I can't get on Facebook and/or Twitter here at Thought Nazi Memorial (kidding, God!!), but I CAN get on here! So I'll update via this comment thread.

So she's due for surgery at NINE! It's eight now. She's in Sit and Wait in Gown mode. She's reading a book (by—whom else for her–Robert Heinlein.) We have no idea what happens next. But, as I say, we sure know where she'll be an hour from now.

Later, gators. All love. Thanks for your kind thoughts!!!!!

http://megaloi.blogspot.com Redlefty (Michael)

She's a Heinlein nut?

I just fell in love with her all over again.

http://www.johnshore.wordpress.com John Shore

I'm still here! We're still waiting!

Yeah, "fan" isn't even almost the word for Cat's relationship with R. Heinlein. (And thank you for that very sweet sentiment, Red.) Heinlein basically RAISED her: as a child she lived with his work, and through them learned everything about morality and responsibility and right and wrong that she used to function in and understand the world. Heinlein saved her, in a way that can't be overestimated. She absorbed from him her entire … well, moral/ethical structure. In an insanely chaotic place–her childhood—she depended on him to teach her. She's never really read anything else (besides Jane Austen, whose works she's been reading for the past 30 years, over and over again). She reads Heinlein over and over again, since she was six. And it's funny, too, because pretty much whatever situation we're in or thinking about, she can quote something R. Heinlein said about that. That's pretty much all she's been reading since I've known her—and way back, as I say, to when she first learned to read.

She's a FREAKISHLY fast reader, too. Like, insane. She once read War and Peace in about five days, during her train commute. Crazy. It has to do with this really weird way she learned how to read: quickly, she reads whole WORDS, rather than syllabically sounding them out, like most people do. So she reads phenomenally quickly—but can't SPELL at all, really. And her comprehension is unbelievable. She basically reads twice as fast as I do—and comprehends and retains twice as much. So I'm forced to deeply resent her.

http://ramblingsofaspiritualidiot.wordpress.com ~Julia~

****sweeps up peppercorns, straightens kitchen and living room and puts on a pot-o-joe for John.****

Just relax, John. It's all good. We're here for you.

http://www.epcomm.com/ddawson Dennis Dawson

Thinking good thoughts. It's the best we atheists can do.

Oh, what the heck, I threw in a prayer. (I know he's not there, but you know he's listening.)

http://jerrisblog.blogspot.com Jerri Harrington

A couplle of weeks ago, I woke up and realized I hadn't seen any posts from you in a long time. Then I got concerned about you and Cat. But that day my son and grandson came down with swine flu, so they took up my thoughts….in fact I moved in with them, since I had had the vaccine and my daughter in law got sick with an unrelated respiratory infection. Then I got sick with something else. So today, I decided to check on you, and sure enough, something was wrong. So now I'm praying for you!

I've been where you are, and I hope someone is there with you. I know God is…and He knows what you are going through. God bless you both! Jerri

http://ricbooth.wordpress.com ric booth

So I’m forced to deeply resent her.

I totally grok you on that one, bro.

Praying for a successful operation.

http://www.johnshore.wordpress.com John Shore

Hey, guys. Thanks so much. And thanks very much for the prayer, Dennis, you closet monotheist, you. (Oh, and Jerri: I've been posting pretty much every day for … well, ever. So … ? But good to hear from you today! Sorry to hear of your health travails!)

Folks: She's under le knife. I'm supposed to wait here in the waiting room (cool match!) until around 11:30, when they'll come out to tell me what's up.

Just ran down to the hospital cafeteria for a little chow. YIKES, man. My choices were biscuits with gravy you could sculpt with, and waffles with bacon that clearly came from one couch potato of a hog. I swear they're using that cafeteria to drum up business for the hospital.

But they have WiFi in this waiting area! A guy who is one of the creepiest, most immediately repelling persons I've ever come across (he and his wife were waiting in the same room before as Cat and me) has decided to sit down at the computer kiosk right behind me so he can cruise for child porn or whatever (seriously: THAT creepy), but … WiFi for I!! Dig it.

Now. Spend the next hour or two bothering you people here, or …. work on this book I'm editing that's so insanely boring I was considering lending a copy of it to Cat's anesthesiologist when he was talking with us earlier.

Or both!

http://megaloi.blogspot.com Redlefty (Michael)

Heinlein wrote War and Peace?!?! Dogs and cats, living together… mass hysteria!

http://www.twitter.Com/Deggsy Derek O’Brien

Hope your phone is fully charged, or bring a charger with you. And good luck, hope it all works out well

http://jerrisblog.blogspot.com Jerri Harrington

Usually what you post pops up on my Home page, but you haven't popped up in a long time. My PC crashed around Nov. 4th, and my son has been trying to extract my files and reload my hard drive. So I haven't been online as much as I usually am. My laptop is not as easy to navigate. I hope your wife is going to be okay.

Greta Sheppard

oooooh, John….the things you go through and how you describe them…. sorry for my silence for so long a time…been extremely busy….and now your sweet Cat is under the knife….I suspect what the surgery is all about…..been there and done that….life's been much sweeter since. Waiting with baited breath to hear how Cat came through…prayers are with you both! God cares deeply about His kids!

http://www.johnshore.wordpress.com John Shore

hey, all. it's pitch dark in the room I'm in; it's Cat's hospital room; she's asleep. The operation was a success! There were some pretty intense complications–it took 3.5 hours instead of 2, and she lost a significant amount of blood.

Anyway, she had an extraordinary surgeon and surgery team, and it all went very well. She'll spend the night here in the hospital (I'll stay in the room with her throughout the night if they'll let me; if not, I'll be outta here in three hours); tomorrow I'll take her home; she's off work for two weeks; it's all great.

Thanks very much for your prayers!!!!

http://jerrisblog.blogspot.com Jerri Harrington

So thankful the surgery was a success. You both are in my heart and in my prayers. Jerri

http://dudethatscrazy.wordpress.com Jennifer

That's why people should give blood- to save people who like heinlin (if needed) and also wives who are insanely supportive and loving of their husbands, whether or not they spray peppercorns all over the house before you go into surgery. You know you will find them for weeks now!